Welcoming Your Second Baby. Vicki Lansky

sure your dog is free of fleas. A trip to the groomer in your last month or while you’re at the hospital might be helpful.

      • Allow your pet to explore and investigate baby items and furnishings before the baby arrives. You might even send home a receiving blanket or a piece of the baby’s clothing from the hospital before the baby comes home to introduce your baby’s scent to your pet.

      • Invite friends with babies and toddlers to visit during your pregnancy so your pet can spend some time around “little people.”

      • Don’t let a cat get use to sleeping in the baby’s crib. Discourage a pet from jumping into the baby’s bed or changing table by applying double-stick tape to some of the surfaces.

      • Dogs, more than cats, can be disturbed by a baby’s cries. Make a recording of a crying baby during your pregnancy—(you probably have at least one friend with a crying baby who can accommodate you!)—and play it occasionally. Stroke your dog and speak in soothing sounds while the tape is played.

      • If a baby’s room is off-limits to your pooch, you may wish to invest in a baby gate. If this is true for your cat, you may wish to install a screen door.

      • Reward a dog for good behavior when around your newborn.

Sharing Age-Appropriate Reproductive Information

      • Show your readiness to answer questions about birth and reproduction by your tone of voice and your patience. Give assurance that it’s all right to ask any question.

      • Use the correct words for the parts and functions of the body in your discussions. They’re no harder to learn than other words, and they won’t have to be unlearned later. (For instance, use the word uterus, not stomach.)

      • Get suitable books about babies and birth very early in your pregnancy, perhaps even before you break the news to your child. Read them together and make them available for casual perusal by the child.

      • Don’t be surprised if your child aged two or so has no questions, or very few, about the baby. A statement like, “Mothers have a special place where the baby grows until it’s ready to be born” may be all that’s required in the way of explaining reproduction.

      • Be prepared to repeat whatever facts you do give many times.

      • Expect lots of questions from your preschooler. He or she will probably want details about “what’s going on inside there”—how the baby eats, sleeps, goes to the bathroom, and other such practical information. Try not to answer more than what’s asked.

      • On the other hand, don’t be alarmed if your preschooler doesn’t ask any questions. For some children, the baby doesn’t seem real until it actually appears. Often children need the physical presence of the baby before they become interested and start asking questions.

       We showed our child pictures of intrauterine development, and took him to childbirth films. He saw a sex education special on PBS. If we had it to do over, we would not prepare him so well. We put too much emphasis on the new baby, and he reacted.

       Dana Clark, Santa Barbara, CA

       When our last child was on the way, our girls were 7 and 8. I bought two very good books with lots of pictures explaining the hows and whys of birth. They loved seeing how “their” baby was developing. They were as excited as my husband and I were. It’s been three years now, and the poor “baby” has had three mothers—he can’t get away with much!

      Susan Lipke, Harietta, MI

      • If you have the feeling that your child is taking an “if-I-ignore-it-it-will-go-away” attitude, you may want to introduce the subject yourself, so he or she will realize that the baby is real and really will be arriving.

      • For a child who is old enough to ask or understand, explain the stretching of a mother’s vagina by putting a tennis ball into a tube sock to show how the sock’s opening easily stretches and then resumes its original opening.

“The Birds & the Bees” Books

      Your pregnancy is the perfect time to share reproductive information with your child and read-together books are the easiest place to start. As with any book, the most important message is the one conveyed by your reading of it. No book has to be read in its entirety. Children will express interest in different information at different ages. Take time to ask and answer questions that arise as you read. At first you may be uncomfortable answering some questions correctly, but it’s worth doing.